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Datacenters in space aren't going to work

taranis.ie

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Re: Datacenters in space aren't going to work

#441

Post by andreybaskov »

cladopa wrote: post #258

It is not a good idea listening to experts tell you what can't be done. Science and technology progresses one funeral at at time. Einstein's ideas were crazy for classical scientists and Heisenberg's for Einstein. The most important thing is making space access ten to one hundred times cheaper with reusable rockets. Then a lot of the problems in the article will not be problems at all. E.g ISS was designed and create…

Thank you for saying this. It's almost like others are saying we should stop trying things because they are hard and challenging.

I wish we could dream a bit bigger rather than coming up with reasons something will fail.

Re: Datacenters in space aren't going to work

#442

Post by morshu9001 »

GMoromisato wrote: post #187
morshu9001 wrote: post #169

Earlier quoted context omitted.

At what price per MW of load?

The Starlink constellation cost $10 billion. That’s comparable to a small data center (maybe 50,000 gpus). If launch costs keep dropping and environmental costs keep rising, space based data centers will make sense.

Comparable in cost or capacity? Small datacenter is maybe around 20MW of compute.

Re: Datacenters in space aren't going to work

#445

Post by schiffern »

Animats wrote: post #386
Coffeewine wrote: post #270

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I was very interested to see in that rebuttal that they explicitly called out ‘datacenters in space’ as a means of ‘exporting’ solar power to the earth. > As the Weinersmiths point out, the ease of generating solar electricity in space is foundational to space development. They focus on the challenges in beaming power back to the Earth, but the “power” could be returned to the Earth in other ways, such as by doing en…

From the rebuttal: "We are at the start of an upward curve of technology development that if allowed to continue for another 50 years, will make it as easy to reach space as to fly to Australia." People were saying that fifty years ago. Didn't happen. Go rewatch "2001". And read NASA's "The Tyranny of the Rocket Equation". There's only so much you can do with chemical fuels.

  >read NASA's "The Tyranny of the Rocket Equation"
This essay by Don Petit? https://web.archive.org/web/20120503175355/https://www.nasa....

He calls for "new paradigms of operating and new technology," which is what SpaceX delivers. On-orbit refilling gives the advantage of orbital assembly without the cost of separate spaceships. Instead of Petit's "building the pyramids" Shuttle example, SpaceX is cranking out water towers.

Certainly that's a new paradigm vs the old NASA way. Don't forget that NASA was forbidden from working on depots due to a certain senator's conflict of interest.

https://www.extremetech.com/extreme/296094-nasas-space-launc...

Re: Datacenters in space aren't going to work

#446

Post by jhanschoo »

ffsm8 wrote: post #87
ReptileMan wrote: post #85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>specifically HEAT energy in space is possible, which it isn't. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black-body_radiation

I see, yes. I was thinking more along the lines of radiating heat energy at a scale that's useable for cooling, not at the more extreme levels of over 500°C/1k fahrenheit That's technically correct I guess, at some temperature threshold it becomes possible to bleed some fractions of energy while the material is exceedingly hot.

Yeah, my comment was intended to be mildly sarcastic in that the proposed heat transmission mechanism already happens on Earth and is yet so dramatically insignificant at usual temperatures that we struggle all the time with managing heat transfer through other means.

Re: Datacenters in space aren't going to work

#447

Post by exomonk »

bigyabai wrote: post #422
exomonk wrote: post #420

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Easy: https://www.kratosspace.com/constellations/articles/data-cen... SDA’s “Battle Management Layer will provide automated space-based battle management through command and control, tasking, mission processing and dissemination” to support time-sensitive kill-chain closure. https://www.sda.mil/battle-management Golden Dome and future missile tracking and ISR will depend on real -time insights, which requires Edge Co…

The only link that you provided mentioning dual-use satellites is from a Swedish defense contractor at an expo. Is SDA "tracking and targeting" on consumer satellites, or are they not? Let's narrow this down to your initial claim.

They're still physically the same Starlink satellites being used for Golden Dome.
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